Each year I anticipate a trio of college conferences—the 20/20 Collegiate Conference (Wake Forest, NC), New Attitude/NEXT (Louisville/Baltimore), and Resolved (Palm Springs, CA). Tuesday I returned from Resolved where about 4,000 students assembled to hear from Rick Holland, Steve Lawson, John MacArthur, John Piper, and C.J. Mahaney. Here are a few highlights from the trip.
Highlight #1: Sunday night in the hotel watching Steve Lawson and John MacArthur start up new Kindles they received for speaking at the conference and listening in as C.J. provided the technical support. These three guys are more comfortable with a fountain pen than an iPod, so this communion of technological discovery was too funny! How I wish I had video! [BTW, upon starting up the Kindle, the first book automatically suggested on the screen to Dr. MacArthur was The Third Jesus by Deepak Chopra. No sale.]
Highlight #2: Hearing Rick lead an impromptu interview with Steve Lawson on church history.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Highlight #3: Hearing Rick’s introduction before C.J. spoke for the first time. His intro was moving because of its accuracy. When Rick asked how many students at the conference had never heard C.J. preach live, I would guess somewhere between 1-in-4 to 1-in-3 raised their hands. And they were in for a treat. On the final evening of the conference, C.J.’s version of his Psalm 42 message (“The Troubled Soul”) was one of the best messages I’ve heard him deliver. But back to the intro, very nicely done!
Highlight #4: To close the conference, Dr. Piper delivered a message “How Sin Serves the Glory of Christ.” It was a clear and concise presentation of the cross-centeredness of biblical history and now ranks in my top-10 favorite Piper messages. Both of his conference messages were pulled from his book, Spectacular Sins (Crossway, 2008).
Highlight #5: Message “A Biblical Strategy For Fighting Sexual Sin” by Rick Holland. Outstanding message!
Highlight #6: Morning devotions on the hotel patio overlooking the empty pool, the palm trees, and the San Jacinto Mountains.
It was a great trip, with comfortable highs in the low-90s (last year it topped out at 117°), and plenty of time to hang out with friends (old and new). But it’s always nice to be home again.
Tony Reinke 
Very cool post. Jealous that I couldn’t be there. Thanks for sharing.
So, I’m reading your blog today and noticing that you are writing about being there when John, Steve, and C.J. got their Kindles. Funny thing is, I was there too! Tony you and I met that night in Rick’s room. I had no clue that you were the Tony of this blog :) In my effort to maximize my time, I’ve limited myself to four blogs daily. Yours is one of them. I really enjoy it. I wish I would’ve connected the dots when we were speaking together. Thanks for coming out to the conference. It was a pleasure meeting you and getting to chat for a few minutes.
Andrew
Andrew this is amazing. Thanks for leaving a comment, I’m humbled that you read my blog in the first place. It was great getting a few moments of time to talk about ministry Sunday night and to be reminded of what Piper told us at the conference: God is at work in millions of ways all around us. One of which was our short time together. Blessed to meet you, Andrew! Tony
Thanks for these links Tony.
I’m curious about the crowd at Resolved. Is there a target audience? Is it age specific?
Cheers
TB
No question the conference targets college students from the major LA-region college campuses. UCLA is well represented. The conference is scheduled around graduation dates. I saw a few post-collegiate married couples, but they were a far outnumbered minority.
Thanks for the Resolved highlights — especially the picture of the guys with their Kindles! This was my second year to take a group of students from Nebraska and they loved every minute of the conference.