Pastor Ron's Deep Thoughts and Shallow Entries: Summer Conference in Toronto

On July 18 - 21 I attended a Conference in Toronto entitled "Understanding and Answering Summit: Clarity in a Culture of Confusion."
It's put on by Ravi Zacharias Ministies as part of their summer school curriculum.
Was held at Wycliffe College on the campus of University of Toronto.

10 Nuggets of Truth that I gleaned while here:

1. Christians have for too long elevated preference over Truth!

2. The right to swing your arm stops at my nose!

3. We are actually not free at all if we are free in Christ.

4. We should want to give answers “to people” and not “to questions”!

5. It’s not Judgement vs. Love. Rather judgment only exists because of love!

6. Art can say more than we can say ourselves.

7. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. Proverbs 25:2

8. Ever more people today have the means to live - but no meaning to live for!

9. Religion- what it says and does for me. People pick the god they want and choose “feelings”.

10. The question is NOT “is the gospel meaningful for me?” But “is the gospel TRUE!”

I ended up staying very close Wycliffe College in the dorms of another - Massey College - (there are several smaller colleges nestled into the Campus of U of T).
Simple room.

Rustic : )

And no A/C. : (

Courtyard.

Entrance to my room.

Walking to the breakfast room.

Where we would be eating breakfast.
Lots of these smaller campuses have such history attached to them. I love the set up of this dining hall.

Great artwork there.

I was a two minute walk to Wycliffe College.

Trinity College was just across the road.
I actually thought this was Wycliffe College. : )
Trinity is a very nice place.

Their Chapel.

Lots of history here.

Stone Chapel.
Simple yet beautiful.

Narthex

Smaller chapel area.

Love the ornate work.

Front of the Chapel

Back.
Someone was practicing the organ at the time.
Was a rich sound.

Well used over time.

And here is where the summit was held.

Massey College entrance.

In addition to many speakers talking on many topics, we were blessed through the arts as well.
Here we listened to Jacob Moon sing for us.

Then Abdu shared thoughts on his new book
"Clarity in a Culture of Confusion"

After the day was over I took a brief evening walk on the very large U of T campus.
CN Tower isn't too far away. : )

Just off campus I found this cute "little" building nestled among all the taller ones.

Nice to walk the quiet streets of the campus.

Lots of stone churches in the area.
Not sure how much they are used any more, but they were beautiful nonetheless.

Nice field where the Nationals for field hockey was played during the day.

Each morning meant breakfast. Whoot. : )

It was hot to be playing field hockey : )

Our days were packed end to end with speakers on different and challenging topics.

To unwind the brain I went for walks and enjoyed the architecture.

Interesting Caption

Who knew.
CRC Chaplain office.
I couldn't actually find find the office so I'm not sure if this is an old sign.

We had some breakout sessions that were very good. One on asking good questions as you talk about the gospel and another on Muslims vs Christianity and the Bible.