SUEU Annual Conference ’09

05 Jul 2009

This week I had the privilege of joining six hundred others from a Christian student group at Sydney University for part of a week-long conference. I was meant to be there the whole week, and was pretty disappointed to find myself stuck in bed for a couple of days after “flu-like symptoms” descended on me Sunday evening! Still, made it up on Wednesday in time for the second half of the week. Rowan Kemp gave some great talks, explaining from the Bible who God is & why the Trinity is essential for understanding Him, how Christians are given a “deposit” or guarantee from God now as a sure sign of what is to come, and what “Spiritual gifts” are and their usefulness not just to individuals, but for the whole of God’s church. And plenty of other stuff, I’m sure!

I’d originally been going to help out leading a Focus (International Student) small group but for obvious reasons (i.e. the whole not arriving til Wednesday thing) this didn’t work out. Yin and Michael led the review group (based around the talk content) until on Thursday Yin got sick and, as many of the students had gone home (they were only attending part time), we combined the two Focus review groups into one. Phil and Anna served this group by exploring some of Christianity’s promises and claims: pray that God will use the material this group went over to continue to stir thoughts and point people to Christ as King and Saviour.

On Thursday night, Rowan shared a vision for the next 50-70 years of the lives of Christian people in that room, where by sustained prayer for many different ministries God might take the lives of many there for His purposes and glory throughout the world. It’s an exciting dream and one I want to prayerfully pursue for the rest of my life, thanking God for those who are passionate about so many different ways He gives us to serve and asking that we could do so more completely because of the Spirit now in us, making us more like Jesus.