Proclaim & Serve 2018

This past Saturday I was privileged to attend the first annual Proclaim & Serve Missions Conference, designed and hosted by Apostolic Christian HarvestCall.   The conference took place in Tremont, Illinois at the Tremont Apostolic Christian (AC) Church.  The conference officially started at 1pm, though Bethany, Jesse, and I attended one of the 3-hour Pre-Conference sessions that started at 9am, and then we were served lunch in the Fellowship Hall.   The final session of the day wrapped up around 9:10pm.

To give just a glimpse of what this conference was like, below is all the sessions that the conference offered.  The sessions that I attended are in BOLD.  This information is coming from their website (https://www.proclaimandserve.org/).

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS (3 hours long)

•  Sharing the gospel - Matt Kaufmann
• Fear,k apathy or a lacking skill set are common inhibitors to share the gospel.  However, there exists an exercise that believers can engage in today that will strengthen their faith and glorify God.  A wonderful side product will be fear giving way to courage, apathy giving way to desire and lacking skillsets - experience.  This workshop will expose and practice this gospel centered exercise. 
• Understanding the gospel more fully - Justin Koch
• "If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is."  The old adage is filled with sage wisdom.  Buyer beware.  When it comes to earthly transactions this adage is a good principle to keep near.  However when it comes to the gospel of Christ, this old adage collapses.  It really is too good to be true.  Nonetheless, it is true.  In this workshop we will seek to make ourselves more effective witnesses of Christ's resurrection. We will address four questions:
  
  -What is our source of Hope?
  -What is our source of Joy?
  -What is our source of Power?
  -What is our source of Identity?
  
  In our walk and work here on earth, the gospel must never be secondary.  Join us in grappling with the truths of scripture that provide the foundation for effective witness. 
• How to help without hurting - Paul Steitmatter
• Our church family continues to become more and more aware of poverty in the world and the opportunities to make a difference are greater than ever before.  However, over the past years we have learned that poverty alleviation is hard.  How do Christians meaningfully reflect Christ's grace when the disparities of wealth and power in our wold are so great? Why do the good but uniformed intentions of North Americans who engage the poor sometimes lead to unintended consequences that can be damaging to everyone involved? When does our culture and heritage lead us to make wrong assumptions when preparing and engaging in cross-cultural missions's trip?
  
  If your interested in learning together about ways we can serve the poor in God honouring ways that make a lasting difference, join us for this workshop as we simulate thoughtful preparation for engaging the materially poor. 
•  Caring for our missionaries (for active and prospective Mentors and Advocates) - Kirk Plattner
• This session is for active and prospective (Those who have a strong desire to engage int he missionary support process) missionary mentors and advocates.  This workshop is designed to provide mentor and advocate training for the purpose of more effectively caring for our missionaries.  We will discuss what has worked, what has not worked, and ideas for developing church support further.  The workshop will be interactive and practical.  

MAIN SESSIONS (Everyone attended all of these) (~30-40 minutes per session)

• Does the church have a mission or the mission have a church? - John Huber
• This presentation is a biblical overview of God's missional timeline and the role of the church as privileged participants in what He is doing and will do in the future.  Special emphasis is given to the role of the gospel as the means by which God will accomplish His mission.
• Our missionary experience - Keith & Alisa Beyer
• Listen to the perspectives of those currently serving on the mission field.  Hear about their struggles and joys and ways you can support them in this work.
• How to be culturally relevant without losing truth - Mike Leman
• How do we work though the challenges of proclaiming salvation by faith in Jesus in a different culture?  How do we teach new believers to be faithful disciples of Jesus regardless of their ethnicity or former religion?  The Apostle Paul said ... "To the Jews I became as a Jew and to the Greeks I became as a Greek." ... or did he?
• Preparing for God to use you - Arlan Miller
• Often our mindset towards ministry and mission can be "sometime, in the future, when I get there...then things will change."  However, God's Word calls us to a different mindset: a mindset of preparation, learning, and doing the here and now. 
• The long tradition of Apostolic Christian evangelism - Fred Witzig
• One of the roots of the Apostolic Christian Church goes deep into the historic beliefs and practices of the Anabaptists, who in the Reformation period became famous for their passionate evangelizing of Europe's marginal peoples.  From the 1500s, to the church started by Samuel Forehlich and extended to the United States int he 1800s, to HarvestCall today, evangelistic missionary work represents a rich tradition for Apostolic Christians.  

MINISTRY UPDATE BREAKOUTS (~30-40 minutes each)

• Planting new AC churches: challenges and opportunities - Tom Waldbeser
• USA: testimonies from South Carolina - Ray & Glad Slagel
• CVE: a day in the life of a caregiver - living the gospel one blow-up at a time - Brock Wiegand
• Haiti Dairy: listening to Haitians, listening to God, working together - Dewayne Dill
• Hospital Lumiere: dental teams fill a void - Todd Stoller
• What doe the Deaf in Jamaica lack? - Seth Kaeb

TOPICAL BREAKOUTS (30 minutes)

• What can we learn from the way Paul evangelized? - Wayne Laubscher
• Why Haiti is NOT  lost cause - Marie Lucie Jeune
• Elder Panel: ansering your questions about missions - Kent Heimer, Marvin Dotterer, Mike Leman, Duane Rocke, Tom Waldbeser
• Honor: what love looks like - Heather S.
• Truth centered community transformation - Dale Koch

DISCUSSION GROUPS (~30-40 minutes each)

• Do missionaries destroy indigenous culture? - Frank Sauder
• What it is like moving to bolster a small church - Duane Rocke
• Missionary Sending - Why, Who, When, What, and How - Kirk Plattner
• Sharing Christ in a world full of questions - Daniel Currier
• Do motives matter? - John Huber
• Redeployment vs retirement - Stephen Baner
• Using Bible distribution to reach the lost - Wayne Laubscher
• How can my local church be a missional church? - Brock Wiegand
• Is prayer central to missions? - Klint Beyer
• You and me, honouring Muslims - Heather S.
• When is our work over? - Arlan Miller
• Remembering them that are in bonds - Bill Schick
• Sharing Christ in the classroom - Fred Witzig
• Helping without hurting - Paul Streitmatter

The day was a full day, and I didn't think I would make it awake the whole time.   Even though I was very sleepy right after lunch, I did make it the day without taking a nap :) . I was very thankful that they set out bins of water and Life Saver Mints to assist as well.   I wish I could have taken more sessions than I did, but there just wasn't time.  Thus, I am greatly looking forward to next year's conference!

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Side note - the picture below shows the label on the water bottles that they gave out. 

As a way of ease and cost, I reuse my plastic bottles.  I had this bottle at work today, and while we were watching and playing with the kids outside, the teacher in our classroom asked me about it.  She thought it was neat and quite funny too.   We both joked about it for a bit, and laughed.   It struck me a quite neat that a water bottle label could catch someones eye like that and could potentially be an influence too.