The badge holders have been handed in, the glossy magazines lie discarded and the 5000 delegates have scattered, once again, to the ‘ends of the earth’. So what is the lasting effect of another Together on a Mission conference?
I have enough history to remember Downs Bible week with, to my mind, impressive clarity. It was where I first served at a Christian event and I guess is therefore partly the reason I’m sitting here now. We began by offering to help out on the doughnut stand and ended 10 years later at Stoneleigh Bible week leading the 11-12’s ministry.
I terms of lasting effect from the content of ‘conferences’ I recall such prophetic preaching that we would leave with confidence that we ‘knew what to work on for the next year’. I was speaking to a young lad a couple of days ago who volunteered exactly the same confidence having been to Newday for the last few years.
The privilege of sitting under such prophetic preaching is impossible to quantify – I suggest you try and explain it next time you sit down with the local ‘churches together’ group.
I personally know people who now are moving house & continent to pursue God’s call, people who are embarking on training and radically re-thinking the plan for their lives. Others, mine included, whose thinking about mission has probably been changed forever and that dear friends changes everything.
This year’s TOAM was so much more than a ‘Christian jolly on the coast’ it was a life changing encounter with God the affect of which will probably only be fully appreciated in eternity. Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to make them happen.
