Well, I knew that it was going to be a powerful conference when I felt the tingle of the Holy Spirit at the first words of Eric Hoey's welcome at the Evangelism and Church Growth Conference here in St. Pete beach (#ecg2012). There were truly signs from the Holy Spirit that I am exactly where God needs me to be. Lazara, Doug and I sat down at a random table and soon some other pastors joined us. A bit into dinner, I started chatting with a gentleman named Ebenezer from Houston... turns out his wife was born and raised and he was married in the small village in Ghana where I served as a YAV. He must have been named after the local congregation there... wow.
Worship was focused on God's intimate presence in our lives now. The baptismal font was filled as the call to worship, reminding us of God's power to fill us... in the prayer of confession, with each confession a cup of water was removed... reminding us how our sins come between us and our baptisms... the assurance of pardon showed us how God's love overflows and refills the baptismal font, removing any evidence of our sins from this world. Powerful stuff. God is present here and now, in my life, taking away my sins... not in some distant future, but today.
As we stood for worship, I was caught up in the fact that as folks stood, a shadow of heads obscured my view of the words, but instead of this being a hindrance or annoyance, it was joy. Here, right now, God is present in each of these persons, gathered from all over, gathered together in the midst of a denomination that often is known for its divisions, and we are brought beautifully together here to see God in action, to celebrate, and to entrust the gospel into one another's hands so that each of us can go home and plant more seeds. God is here and now.
Our preacher was Mark Yaconelli, a man I last heard preach with my husband when we attended the Presbyterian Youth Triennium a few years ago. His words touched home so much... He talked about the disciples feeling so incapable of acting out the ministry of God. He talked about how we often feel even worse by going to these conferences, wishing we had cool churches (the chillax church) or cool ministries that grew in great numbers. We feel inept and unloved and that God will only love us when we get our ministry to "that" point in the future.
And then he reminded us that the ministry that Jesus was most incarnate in had 12 members who totally did not understand the message, one of whom was trying to kill him. "If you are leading THAT ministry, THAT is where God is." 12 clueless people, one of whom is trying to kill you. I smiled. Maybe God can be with me here and now.
In a time when I feel so scared and overwhelmed to imagine that my husband and a small group of believers are wanting to start a church from nothing in Fort Worth (RevAndrewWong.blogspot.com) and where my evangelism team's response is to then feel called to start ANOTHER church, spanish-speaking, in Fort Worth, (neither with any money) I heard tonight that perhaps, just maybe, that is precisely where God is. And that we already have what we need.
God is enough.
Jesus is enough.
We are enough.
That is awesome. That makes sense in my life when nothing else seems to.
And so with joy, I sang the refrain of the closing song...
Your love never fails, never runs out, never gives up on me.
1 comment:
Off to a good start (both the blog and the conference)!
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