World Christian Conference (WCC) Recap Part 1
It's 11:30 on Monday night, Rich Mullins is in the CD player, and I'm still processing lessons and impact from the WCC that I attended this past weekend in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Since I need to get some rest before diving back into work for the rest of this week, I'm going to write out this post while memories are relatively fresh... to just jot down things for processing later (which will possibly show up in a different blog). This'll be mostly for my benefit, so it'll probably be pretty disjointed...
I'm fairly cynical about Christian conferences as a whole, but I resolved to go into this weekend with an open mind and the hope that I'd be inspired by people who know what they are committed to and are living out that commitment. The conference exceeded my expectations.
World Christian Conference 2003 - "Gripped by God's Glory"
Friday, Feb. 14
- drove up with Andy Y through thick fog that reduced visibility to about 10 feet for 20 minutes or so while we drove through the Santa Cruz Mounains on Highway 9. Mistakenly thought the evening plenary session began at 8 pm and went to Round Table for dinner beforehand.
- got into the tabernacle right when a guy named Bernie was sharing his testimony about living and working as a computer programmer in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, volunteering at the San Francisco Rescue Mission in his off time. The 25 yards from the BART station to his office became an area of ministry. Phrase he used that I liked - these homeless, uncared-for people would become his "victims of love."
- Marilyn Laszlo was our evening speaker for all three nights we were there. She's a real firebrand of a 70-year old woman, hailing from Valparaiso, Indiana, who spent something like 25 years of her life with a tribe in Papua New Guinea as a representative from Wycliffe Bible Translators. Essentially invented their written language, she taught the people how to read and write, and translated the Bible into their language after a few decades. This first talk was mostly about her testimony of where she came from, how she was brought up, and how she decided to go into the missions field. Central point: God creates us with passions and dreams for a specific reason. This would become one of the recurring themes throughout the weekend. Oh, I also think that no one was surprised when she said that she used to teach PE in high school... definitely has that go-get-'em attitude.
- cabinmates: Makodo, Ernie, Alex, Terrence, Jonathan, Jay. Had some good conversations with Jay, a new grad from UCLA (I think), about the transition to working life.
Saturday, Feb. 15
- breakfast: eggs with ham, potatoes. This is pretty filling stuff. Ate with other people involved with youth ministry and traded stories of why we were doing it.
- morning plenary session: found out the worship band hails from Bread of Life in SoCal, where Byron, Maria, Joy, and Andy hail from originally. Alex (the worship leader) has 2 nice Taylors, one a 300-series and the other an 800-series. The 300-series has both a pickup and a microphone and sounds fabulous plugged in. In the morning set, noticed that 2 songs that we sung both had themes of being held by God (keeping with the conference theme), but one was called "Water" and had water imagery of being washed and drenched, while the other was "Stir in Me" which uses fire imagery. Reminded me of the "contest" that Elijah gets into with the prophets of Baal, where he drenches his offering to God with buckets and buckets of water, then God's fire comes down and laps up the sacrifice, the altar, and even the excess water. Good song choice.
- the speaker for the morning plenary sessions was Lee Yih, a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs who moved with his family to Hong Kong to join a network of Christian lay people in various professional careers. Talked about the purpose for work - we spend most of our lives at it. We don't work to earn a living or to gain significance (in today's world, when you meet someone new, the second question you're asked after your name is typically, "What do you do for a living?"), but instead to represent Christ to people who may not have any other contact with Christ in any other way, and to work out our own issues of faith. Also talked about the theology of "treasures in heaven" that I'll elaborate more on when I process.
- small group members: Patti, Jessica, Wesley, May-Lynn. Had the most opportunity to talk with Wesley over lunch - he's at a church in Milpitas, also working with his youth group, and feels called overseas. Will try to keep in touch.
- went hiking with a group of Canaan people in the early afternoon after lunch
- workshop 1: Inner-city ministry, Compassion and the Gospel, Steven Park. Steven works with Little Lights Ministries in Washington DC, which works with underprivileged kids. Shared his testimony of how God brought him out of a life of drugs and hopelessness, and drew him into urban ministry by showing him how pure and sincere children can be. He focused more on the "why" of inner-city ministry, and I was hoping more for "how" and "what it's like from his perspective." I'll probably try to shoot him an email when we get the conference directories.
- workshop 2: Understanding Islam, Jim Roths. Fascinating workshop. Jim and his wife lived a fair number of years in like Turkey or something, among Muslims, and befriended many of those in his community. Pointed out a lot of things not just about the religious doctrines of Islam, but also about the culture and worldview of the Muslims that he lived with - what offended them, how they interpreted certain symbols and that sort of thing. I'll try to write some of those in a later post, but one that stuck out in particular was that sinec Islam is both a religious and a cultural system (similar to Judaism), Muslims have a concept of "Muslim nations", and conversely, consider the US, Britain, and other countries to be "Christian countries." Thus, everything that they see that comes from the US: television programming, movies, pornography, and so on, is considered to be representative of Christianity. No wonder they call America the "Great Satan" and consider the word "Christian" to mean "immoral."
- evening session - testimony from Colleen, focusing on the power of prayer. Marilyn gave her second talk, expanding on what life was like living with and befriending both the old medicine man/leader of the tribe, as well as 6- and 7-year old boys that would eventually spend 20 years helping her translate. Talked about eating steamed grubs.
Sunday, Feb 16
- breakfast - French toast and sausage. Again, pretty filling stuff.
- morning session - Lee talked about how lay ministry (the common believer, as opposed to a full-time worker like a pastor) is God's plan for ministering to a broken world, but many lay believers still have the perspective that the work of ministry is up to full-time ministers
- Pastor John Lo then gave an impassioned talk about the strategic placement of Asian-American Christians (AACs)in the world today, drawing parallels to the cross-cultural ministers of New Testament times to today. Made the point that this generation of AACs is the most-educated minority in the US, yet doesn't have the hindrances of having a white person's face, because throughout the world, white people represent the whole imperialist philosophy and so are distrusted.
- workshop 3: Quarter-Life Crisis, Pastor John Lo. He continued the theme mentioned above in the workshop I attended next. Challenged us to consider, "What role has God created me to play?" I.e., what are my skills, talents, passions, spiritual gifts, and how do I fit into the needs of this world? Deep stuff that is providing the bulk of what I'm currently still processing. Afterwards while fasting during lunch, went for a walk and had a conversation with God that I'm also still processing.
- in the afternoon, talked a bit with Grace, who was at the ministry booths representing World Impact, an inner-city ministry. She's a teacher living in inner-city LA, so I got to hear a bit about what it's like to live in an area where you hear the occasional gunshot, and how God drew her into this field coming out of college. They have sites in SF and Oakland, as well as other places around the country, so I might check them out sometime.
- dinner - turkey w/ cranberry sauce, potatoes
- evening session - Marilyn shared her final message and included a video clip from a Billy Graham Crusade in 1990, where she brought some of the members of the tribe she spent much of her life with. It was incredibly moving to hear them share testimonies in surprisingly good, though accented, English that Marilyn and her partner taught them over 10 years. Afterward, had a time of communion and commitment.
Monday, Feb. 17
- morning session - testimony by Brian, sharing about how his father gave him words of wisdom at a young age - "Try to live a life where you never have to say, 'I could've.'" No Regrets. Lee shared his final message, using the illustration of a scale - each piece of weight added to tip or balance that scale is equally important, b/c it wouldn't tip or be balanced without each weight. In the same way, for the lay believer, our job is not to "tip the scale" or convert people, but to add as much weight to as many scales as possible - in other words, be a powerful influence in many lives as possible.
It's 11:30 on Monday night, Rich Mullins is in the CD player, and I'm still processing lessons and impact from the WCC that I attended this past weekend in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Since I need to get some rest before diving back into work for the rest of this week, I'm going to write out this post while memories are relatively fresh... to just jot down things for processing later (which will possibly show up in a different blog). This'll be mostly for my benefit, so it'll probably be pretty disjointed...
I'm fairly cynical about Christian conferences as a whole, but I resolved to go into this weekend with an open mind and the hope that I'd be inspired by people who know what they are committed to and are living out that commitment. The conference exceeded my expectations.
World Christian Conference 2003 - "Gripped by God's Glory"
Friday, Feb. 14
- drove up with Andy Y through thick fog that reduced visibility to about 10 feet for 20 minutes or so while we drove through the Santa Cruz Mounains on Highway 9. Mistakenly thought the evening plenary session began at 8 pm and went to Round Table for dinner beforehand.
- got into the tabernacle right when a guy named Bernie was sharing his testimony about living and working as a computer programmer in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, volunteering at the San Francisco Rescue Mission in his off time. The 25 yards from the BART station to his office became an area of ministry. Phrase he used that I liked - these homeless, uncared-for people would become his "victims of love."
- Marilyn Laszlo was our evening speaker for all three nights we were there. She's a real firebrand of a 70-year old woman, hailing from Valparaiso, Indiana, who spent something like 25 years of her life with a tribe in Papua New Guinea as a representative from Wycliffe Bible Translators. Essentially invented their written language, she taught the people how to read and write, and translated the Bible into their language after a few decades. This first talk was mostly about her testimony of where she came from, how she was brought up, and how she decided to go into the missions field. Central point: God creates us with passions and dreams for a specific reason. This would become one of the recurring themes throughout the weekend. Oh, I also think that no one was surprised when she said that she used to teach PE in high school... definitely has that go-get-'em attitude.
- cabinmates: Makodo, Ernie, Alex, Terrence, Jonathan, Jay. Had some good conversations with Jay, a new grad from UCLA (I think), about the transition to working life.
Saturday, Feb. 15
- breakfast: eggs with ham, potatoes. This is pretty filling stuff. Ate with other people involved with youth ministry and traded stories of why we were doing it.
- morning plenary session: found out the worship band hails from Bread of Life in SoCal, where Byron, Maria, Joy, and Andy hail from originally. Alex (the worship leader) has 2 nice Taylors, one a 300-series and the other an 800-series. The 300-series has both a pickup and a microphone and sounds fabulous plugged in. In the morning set, noticed that 2 songs that we sung both had themes of being held by God (keeping with the conference theme), but one was called "Water" and had water imagery of being washed and drenched, while the other was "Stir in Me" which uses fire imagery. Reminded me of the "contest" that Elijah gets into with the prophets of Baal, where he drenches his offering to God with buckets and buckets of water, then God's fire comes down and laps up the sacrifice, the altar, and even the excess water. Good song choice.
- the speaker for the morning plenary sessions was Lee Yih, a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs who moved with his family to Hong Kong to join a network of Christian lay people in various professional careers. Talked about the purpose for work - we spend most of our lives at it. We don't work to earn a living or to gain significance (in today's world, when you meet someone new, the second question you're asked after your name is typically, "What do you do for a living?"), but instead to represent Christ to people who may not have any other contact with Christ in any other way, and to work out our own issues of faith. Also talked about the theology of "treasures in heaven" that I'll elaborate more on when I process.
- small group members: Patti, Jessica, Wesley, May-Lynn. Had the most opportunity to talk with Wesley over lunch - he's at a church in Milpitas, also working with his youth group, and feels called overseas. Will try to keep in touch.
- went hiking with a group of Canaan people in the early afternoon after lunch
- workshop 1: Inner-city ministry, Compassion and the Gospel, Steven Park. Steven works with Little Lights Ministries in Washington DC, which works with underprivileged kids. Shared his testimony of how God brought him out of a life of drugs and hopelessness, and drew him into urban ministry by showing him how pure and sincere children can be. He focused more on the "why" of inner-city ministry, and I was hoping more for "how" and "what it's like from his perspective." I'll probably try to shoot him an email when we get the conference directories.
- workshop 2: Understanding Islam, Jim Roths. Fascinating workshop. Jim and his wife lived a fair number of years in like Turkey or something, among Muslims, and befriended many of those in his community. Pointed out a lot of things not just about the religious doctrines of Islam, but also about the culture and worldview of the Muslims that he lived with - what offended them, how they interpreted certain symbols and that sort of thing. I'll try to write some of those in a later post, but one that stuck out in particular was that sinec Islam is both a religious and a cultural system (similar to Judaism), Muslims have a concept of "Muslim nations", and conversely, consider the US, Britain, and other countries to be "Christian countries." Thus, everything that they see that comes from the US: television programming, movies, pornography, and so on, is considered to be representative of Christianity. No wonder they call America the "Great Satan" and consider the word "Christian" to mean "immoral."
- evening session - testimony from Colleen, focusing on the power of prayer. Marilyn gave her second talk, expanding on what life was like living with and befriending both the old medicine man/leader of the tribe, as well as 6- and 7-year old boys that would eventually spend 20 years helping her translate. Talked about eating steamed grubs.
Sunday, Feb 16
- breakfast - French toast and sausage. Again, pretty filling stuff.
- morning session - Lee talked about how lay ministry (the common believer, as opposed to a full-time worker like a pastor) is God's plan for ministering to a broken world, but many lay believers still have the perspective that the work of ministry is up to full-time ministers
- Pastor John Lo then gave an impassioned talk about the strategic placement of Asian-American Christians (AACs)in the world today, drawing parallels to the cross-cultural ministers of New Testament times to today. Made the point that this generation of AACs is the most-educated minority in the US, yet doesn't have the hindrances of having a white person's face, because throughout the world, white people represent the whole imperialist philosophy and so are distrusted.
- workshop 3: Quarter-Life Crisis, Pastor John Lo. He continued the theme mentioned above in the workshop I attended next. Challenged us to consider, "What role has God created me to play?" I.e., what are my skills, talents, passions, spiritual gifts, and how do I fit into the needs of this world? Deep stuff that is providing the bulk of what I'm currently still processing. Afterwards while fasting during lunch, went for a walk and had a conversation with God that I'm also still processing.
- in the afternoon, talked a bit with Grace, who was at the ministry booths representing World Impact, an inner-city ministry. She's a teacher living in inner-city LA, so I got to hear a bit about what it's like to live in an area where you hear the occasional gunshot, and how God drew her into this field coming out of college. They have sites in SF and Oakland, as well as other places around the country, so I might check them out sometime.
- dinner - turkey w/ cranberry sauce, potatoes
- evening session - Marilyn shared her final message and included a video clip from a Billy Graham Crusade in 1990, where she brought some of the members of the tribe she spent much of her life with. It was incredibly moving to hear them share testimonies in surprisingly good, though accented, English that Marilyn and her partner taught them over 10 years. Afterward, had a time of communion and commitment.
Monday, Feb. 17
- morning session - testimony by Brian, sharing about how his father gave him words of wisdom at a young age - "Try to live a life where you never have to say, 'I could've.'" No Regrets. Lee shared his final message, using the illustration of a scale - each piece of weight added to tip or balance that scale is equally important, b/c it wouldn't tip or be balanced without each weight. In the same way, for the lay believer, our job is not to "tip the scale" or convert people, but to add as much weight to as many scales as possible - in other words, be a powerful influence in many lives as possible.
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