Austin Fischer writes at his blog:
“... if {XYZ Conference} is the most spiritual moment of your year, a.) I feel bad for you…b.) you’re not going to be able to love and serve your actual church. And that’s because your actual church actually has to be the church. It has to deal with crying babies, botched song transitions, average sermons by not-famous people, and a budget for the year that is half as small as that for 4 days of {XYZ Conference}. It’ll never measure up and so you’ll probably bail and look for a church that will feed your {XYZ Conference} addiction ... or you’ll stay and complain and never put down any real roots.”
Full confession: I love going to conferences. I've been to many Christian conferences and I find them generally refreshing, enriching, enlightening, inspiring, and a whole lot of other "ings". That admission aside, Fischer is spot on when he identifies the pitfalls (especially to teen and college-age Christ-followers) of Christian conference addiction.