Under 30s Conference - Feb 16-18 2007

What a grand weekend. It didn't go entirely as planned, but God's hand was in it, and I am sure that He was moving. Poor John, who had organised the conference in fine detail was unavoidably forced to be absent. This meant that the team he had delegated some tasks to were required to take over. He had done so much planning, though, that it wasn't too hard to step in.

This was a great learning opportunity for me. Initially I had been detailed to lead the worship and do a couple of other small things (book reviews etc). Now, Janet and I between us were the go-to people. I have to admit, I loved the pressure of it, and really enjoyed interacting with all the guys there. There seemed to be a fairly even divide between interest in China and interest in Japan, with a few for Cambodia and a few for Philippines.

David Miller from ICC was doing the Bible talks, although they were far from being straight sermons. He was introducing the concept of cross-culture and different perspectives on the gospel from different cultural standpoints. The Bible was his key resource text. The measure of how good his talks were was how intense some of the small groups became afterwards in their discussions. The guys were really trying hard to tackle the issues faced by Christians working in alien contexts, and also Christians from completely different backgrounds.

There were plenty of highlights, but for me the following were especially great:

• The worship on the Friday evening
• The cross-culture game/exercise/insight on the Saturday evening
• Long and useful chats with Derek, Jacques, Louise and Millie.
• Pearl and Susanne's cooking
• Knowing that the Lord was there

I am convinced that from this conference there are people who have been challenged by what 'missionary' means, and also how best to serve God in the future. Will we get any of the 100 - it's possible, but more likely, some of the first batch for 2009/2010.

Comments