365: The Reboot

Spirituality meets commercialism is a fairly accurate way to describe this conference.  Don't get me wrong.. the forty minutes of Joyce speaking was inspirational and I did get some great thoughts out of it. But from the "free" admission to the "retail boutique" to the offering taken up in the first hour.... it becomes obvious that the underlying theme is money.  Admission to the conference was free.  So if you go with the mindset you are going to sit for the next 4-5 hours and not eat, drink or purchase anything at all... then yes, the conference is free.  However, most will spend an average of $55 on anything from snacks, bottles of water, books, CDs, t-shirts, jewelry and journals.  This was my first conference of its type... and though I enjoyed pieces of it and really loved the worship music at the beginning, I definitely walked away feeling like I was lucky that I didn't get sucked into her cult-like following.  I guess people just need something to believe and hold on to... why they choose to do that with someone speaking The Word and not Jesus himself baffles me... but to each their own.