Winter Conference is always a highlight. The fellowship is great, the speakers are almost always convicting, challenging and exciting, the worship is energetic and passionate,
and all the seminars and activities leave no room for lukewarmness or apathy. And this year, it was "extra super special" (
Drop Dead Gorgous quote) for me because I got to serve on the planning team (see November 30 and December 18 posts) and was chosen to be the Emcee. Having these two roles made Winter Conference an ENTIRELY new experience for me, as I spent all day, every day, basically straight through from 730am to 11pm, in the ballroom either preparing for meetings, running meetings, or meeting with the planning team to tweak our meetings. So I had little to no interaction with my students, and it was definitely sad that I didn't get to catch up with many of my staff and intern friends due to my near complete lack of free time, but I wouldn't trade that experience for anything! It was SO rewarding to be on that side of Conference, and to watch God show up in marvelous ways to take over the main sessions.
Some pictures, and thoughts, to wrap up those four amazing days...
The first night of emceeing was probably the scariest. There was a LOT of info to go over, and it was my chance to build rapport with the students so that they would trust me to guide them through the week.
Well, I really couldn't have asked for a better night. My intro went really well, the students really got to understand what the conference was about, there was a GREAT and thought-provoking skit encouraging participants to bring hearts that are ready to encounter God,
the worship was joyful, and the speaker, James White, a pastor from North Carolina, spoke dynamically and passionately about the love of God to start off Conference.
Praise God that He completely took over after a lackluster, technical-difficulties-filled rehearsal, to give us a phenomenal first night.
Speaking of skits, this year's Winter Conference featured many more creative elements than in recent years. There was the first night's skit, then a skit about a prisoner who does not want freedom, which set the tone for the speaker who would talk about the scary parts of being "All In" for God,
a reader's theater piece about students contemplating going on missions, a cool, modified version of the "cardboard testimonies"
(See an example of the standard ones here)
an AMAZING hiphop dance choreographed to show the beauty of the contagiousness of the Spirit-filled life,which set everyone up really well to excitedly go out into the city of San Diego and share Christ,
and a painting of Jesus and the empty tomb, done on plexiglass by two artists on stage, set to meditative music.
This one was particularly special, because the speaker had JUST talked about how we are each God's masterpiece, and had compared God's relationship with us to that of a painter with his painting. And during the whole performance, you couldn't tell what the painting was of, until they hit the very last stroke and went off stage, when many people's jaws dropped at the realization of what the painting was.
There were also cool testimonies.
On the first night, to start things off, JJ, a student from Chico State, shared his story of how God led him to go on a Winter Conference and how he accepted Christ there. It was such an authentic, powerful testimony!
On the second morning, we were highlighting ESM- Ethnic Student Ministries. These are CCC's branches that reach out to specific cultural groups, because we recognize that people of different cultures can often have different spiritual barriers and different styles of communication. Richard, from Long Beach State, shared how God called him to start a ministry for Latinos (Destino) on his campus. Many students felt encouraged and challenged to go start ESMs on their own campus, as God began breaking their hearts for specific cultural groups.
A man from Uganda, who was saved through being a Compassion, Intl-sponsored child gave his testimony of how an American girl "chose to live simply so that [he] could simply live" was heart-wrenching yet inspiring!
Leyla, the only staff person in the Dominican Republic, shared her story of how blessed she and her ministry were by the few students that gave up their summer last year to go on the very first Summer Project there.
Ben (ASU) and KC (Chico) shared their testimonies of how going on a stateside (US) Summer Project changed their lives.
Day 3 was what we call our "Day of Faith". After the morning session, the students all went out into different parts of San Diego to go share Christ with people they ran into- at the beach, at malls, at parks, etc. "Day of Faith" is often a student's first time doing evangelism, and so it's a really exciting (and sometimes scary) day for everyone. At the end of the day, we had students come up on stage and share cool stories from the day.
Some were stories about people praying to receive Christ, some were stories about a cool way God led them to talk to a certain person, and some were just about how students overcame lifelong fears and barriers to finally step out in faith and talk to people about God- all were encouraging, beautiful stories of God's awesome work!
Day 4 was New Year's Eve. After a fantastic morning session talk by Carrie Walker (a National Director for Campus Crusade),
students broke out into seminars that put a practical twist on the things they had been learning.
Some examples of seminars were ones on apologetics, sexual sin, being a spiritual leader, and breaking through barriers in sharing Christ with people of specific cultures (Muslim, Greek, Gay/Lesbian, etc). At night, Jamey Pappas (Campus Director at Cal Poly SLO)
gave a challenging talk about the Treasure in the field, and going "All In" for it. There was also a one-man skit (a REALLY cool one), done by Mike Berk (one of our Regional Directors) that was a modern-day version of the story of the man who sold everything he had for the treasure in the field.
At the end of Jamey's talk, there was a sweet opportunity for people to indicate their decisions to go "All In" for God by cracking glow sticks
and then going over to the walls of the ballroom to sign different posters indicating specific "All In" decisions like "I commit to reaching a specific people group on my campus" or "I commit to applying for a Summer Project this year".
It was a really cool sight, getting to look out over the room from on-stage and seeing all the glowsticks raised high. Hundreds of students made powerful, life-changing decisions through the Conference that night. Praise God!
After the meeting, the students split off into their last of three "Campus Connection Times" when they got to meet with students from their own campus to talk about what God's been doing in their lives through the week. This was the only Connection time I got to go to but it was so encouraging to hear about everything God was doing in the hearts of my Trojans!
Then it was PARTY time!
The annual New Year's Eve dance party went until the countdown, and from midnight til about 1:15, we welcomed in the new year with worship and prayer.
What a sweet way to end 2009 and start 2010!
There were also elements outside of the main ballroom like the coffee house where students could hang out, have open mic sessions, play games, etc.
But, unfortunately, I can't say too much about them because I didn't really experience them. But I hear they were GREAT! :)
I hope that gave you a glimpse of how awesome those four days were, and more importantly, how God showed up to rock the house and change the lives of students from around the region. It was absolutely exhausting but I couldn't have been more excited about the way things turned out. He is so good and I just want to thank you all for praying for the conference, supporting me so I could be part of something like this, and even the encouraging little texts, facebook wallposts, and notes you sent me as I emceed.
End of 2009- awesome.
Let's experience even more of God in 2010! Yes? Cool!
