FAITHFUL OBSERVATIONS: Steeling the Mind - Compass Ministries
If cabin fever is becoming a chronic problem, some events break the routine and are worthy of your attendance. North Idaho Young Life is having its “generation celebration” banquet on Feb. 20 at the Best Western Plus CDA Inn. This is a high energy and very worthy ministry to support. Go to northidaho.younglife.org to make your reservation.
The other event is the Steeling the Mind Bible Conference being held at The Coeur d’Alene Resort on Saturday, Feb. 15. This is sponsored by Compass Ministries, which is headquartered locally but hosts these events throughout the country. They also arrange biblically oriented travel throughout the world.
My wife, Jane, and I had a chance to catch up with the Founder and Executive Director of Compass, Bill Perkins, and learn more about the upcoming Bible conference.
Bill, “Steeling the Mind” is an interesting title for a Bible conference. Why this title and what is the purpose of the conference?
My wife, Susie, came up with the idea of using this name back in 1993. “Steeling” is taken from Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Another Proverb, 11:14, says a wise man has many counselors. So this conference brings together scripturally solid Bible teachers to hammer away, steel on steel, on tough Biblical topics meant to complement our local churches.
Biblical maturity is every Believer’s goal. Combined with the command in I Peter 3:15 that Christians should be able to defend their beliefs, this conference is designed to armor Believers with God’s truth. It’s easy to see that we’re living in a world of outright lies. We need Biblical truth, a “Biblical worldview,” as a useful anchor in our lives.
What can folks who attend expect? What will be the topics covered and who will be speaking?
This conference attracts people mostly from the Northwest — Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho. But we also get registrations from as far away as the East Coast. The presentations are very visual as the speakers all use PowerPoint slides to enhance their lectures. All this gives the conference special electric atmosphere in the room. It’s amazing to me that we’ll have people from around 150 churches in the same room studying the Bible.
The first speaker begins at 9 a.m. and there’s a new speaker every hour all day long. We have six speakers this year including Randall Price of Liberty University in Virginia, speaking on the coming Jewish temple in Jerusalem; Andy Woods, President of Chafer Seminary, addressing the challenges facing the local churches; and Russ Miller from Creation Ministries in Arizona on how to defend the creationist world view.
Frank Peretti, local best-selling author, and Dave Reagan from Dallas, Texas, will also speak and those two are always our most exciting presenters. Topics include Bible prophecy, apologetics and what we call Signs of the Times.
Bill, the topic of “end times prophecies” has been talked about for many years. What is the impetus to make this an important topic of the day?
Fulfilled Bible prophecy is what separates the Bible from every other book on the planet, proving God inspired its contents. There were over 300 specific prophecies mentioned in the Old Testament about the first coming of Christ that were fulfilled literally, so we think it’s important to study the hundreds of prophecies dealing with Jesus’ 2nd Coming.
Some of the most striking prophecies are regarding the nation of Israel. The Bible says Israel would reject their Messiah, be scattered for 2,000 years, come back as a nation, have a strong military, and have remained a pure race. In 1948 the Jews returned to the land and became a nation sanctioned by the United Nations. All of this is prophesied in Ezekiel 37 and other books of the Bible. So we attract a lot of people who track Bible prophecy at this conference.
We also have one of the top apologists in the country speaking this year, the entertaining Russ Miller from Flagstaff, Ariz. He uses humor mixed with pure science to prove that the Biblical account of creation and Noah’s flood are scientifically better aligned with observable facts than is the theory of evolution. If you love your Bible, love the Lord and love to learn, you’ll love this conference!
Bill, what is the cost of this daylong event and if people want more information on the event, where do they go?
Tickets are $49 per person or $39 for seniors and military. Students are $10. Pastors and pastor spouses attend free. And if you’re broke, we have scholarships. You can view the complete schedule of speakers and times at https://compass.org or call our office at 208-762-7777. For those who are out of town or can’t make it to the conference in person, you can request a free link to watch it on YouTube Live.
We would be remiss if we didn’t also cover your Biblical travel events. What is up on the calendar?
Yes, there’s nothing better than going to SEE your Bible. We have a fantastic Biblelands Cruise that begins Oct. 6 in Rome. We’ll spend 16 days on the Mediterranean visiting the Biblical ports of Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, Galilee and Jerusalem using the ship as sort of a floating hotel. Past travelers have described this cruise as a trip of a lifetime! It really makes your Bible change from black and white to living color!
On April 7, 2021, we’ll have an 11-day land trip to Israel and Petra. We use top Jewish guides and hotels on this trip. This will be my wife Susie’s and my 62nd trip to Israel. Our passengers benefit from our knowledge of what makes this the very best trip possible. I would mention a few other trips but they are already sold out.
If people are interested in any of our trips or conferences, they can sign up for our Compass eNews and receive a monthly Bible study and trips update on compass.org!
Thanks again Bill for your time. We are fortunate to have you and your staff as a resource in our area.
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Bob Shillingstad’s columns appear Saturdays in The Press. Email Bob: bjshill@mac.com