“He answered: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Luke 10:27)
I thank and praise God for this 2009 Young Disciples conference. I thank God for all the serving servants who worked hard to prepare this conference. Truly, God’s spirit was with us at miracle camp. God personally met me at this conference once again, and I could renew my love for Him. I admit that my intentions for coming to YDC were mostly social. But at the beginning of the conference, Joshua Jeon gave us all the direction to: Focus on God, Listen to God’s voice, Repent our sins and make Decisions of faith through this conference. His prayer was for all of us to be “FL-oo-R-e-D” by what God would do through this conference. So I turned my focus on God and listened to His voice. When I did, God’s love poured into my heart and I was overwhelmed at the love and grace that I received at this conference.
The conference title was “Love Live” and the entire conference concentrated on these two themes. All of the messages contained the words “love” and “live” in their titles. At first, I was confused about the conference title. But Michael Mark from IIT, who opened the conference, explained that as young disciples, we need to return back to the fundamental ideas of love and life. We love to live and in order to truly live we must love. With those ideas in mind, Greg Lewis from Toledo delivered the opening message on John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” He said that Jesus wants young disciples to remain in him. Jesus suffered and died so that He could remain in us. He challenged us to enter into a vine and branch relationship with Christ by loving and living as Jesus did.
After that we had group Bible study based on lecture 1. Chicago led a spirited praise and worship for the evening program, Sh. Daniel Errett from Bowling Green UBF shared his life testimony and then Abraham Vucekovich from Lincoln Park UBF delivered lecture 1 based on Luke 10:25-28, “The Good Samaritan”. The title of his message was, “Love and you will Live.” In this passage and expert of the law comes to Jesus and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus asked the expert what he thought, he responded, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus told him, “Do this and you will live.” In his message, Abe reminded us of God’s perfect love. He said that we must fall in love with God. He painted the picture of God standing outside of our window in the pouring rain, serenading us, asking “What more can I do to make you love me?” and us inside the room with our headphones on, distracted and apathetic. God’s love song to us is Jesus; his sacrifice and death on the cross for our sins his ultimate act of love. He challenged us to be faithful to God; that love is a deeply committed relationship that needs to be worked on. I learned that I must love God in order to truly live. After the first night’s programs were over, John Martin Jr. from Chicago, a P.E. teacher, led us in team-building group activities and we could meet with new young disciples and grow closer together.
The next day’s program began with early morning prayer, followed by breakfast, our 2nd group Bible study, praise and worship led by the Canadian worship team “Five Two”, a life testimony by Joseph Kim from Lincoln Park, and then lecture 2 delivered by Dr. Sarah Won from Chicago. The title of her message was “Live a Life of Love.” Dr. Sarah delivered a beautiful message on what it means to be a good neighbor. This was a continuation of lecture 1. In lecture 2, the expert of the law wanted to justify himself and asks, “And who is my neighbor?’” Jesus then teaches him about the parable of the good Samaritan, who stopped to help a man who was robbed, wounded and lying half-dead on the side of the road, after a priest and a Levite passed by. Dr. Sarah Won painted a vivid picture of this parable, contrasting bad neighbors, who only love when it is convenient to love with good neighbors, those who are compassionate and self-less. She explained that there are many broken and wounded people who need our love, but we must be willing to put aside excuses and be unafraid to sacrifice ourselves, to be rejected, in order to love others. She talked about the ultimate good Samaritan Jesus, who sacrificed himself to help us when we were broken and wounded. With tears, she shared that Little Sarah Kim was a good Samaritan to her and really loved her and helped her over all these years. Her love and thankfulness moved many people’s hearts, also to tears, as they remembered their own good Samaritans. She challenged us to live of life of love – loving others as true neighbors, and as our expression of our love for God.
In the afternoon, we had a symposium of mission reports and testimonies on shepherd life.
Susan Hong from Lehigh shared her mission report from Sri Lanka on the struggle and suffering in a very turbulent mission field and how God was with her throughout her stay. Christian Norcross from Loop chapter shared her mission report from Mongolia on how much grace she received in the eagerness of the Mongol students she worked with and showed us an art project they created of who they thought Jesus was through their John’s gospel study. Francesca Park from Chicago, Becky Song from New York, and Joshua Jeon from Chicago shared on their shepherd lives. Through their testimonies, I could learn about the struggles and joy of loving others. I was encouraged to think about my own shepherd life and what it means to grow as a shepherd.
After dinner, Justin Spencer from Cincinnati shared his life testimony and then Isaac Kim from Chicago shared an introduction to New Year Key Verse testimony reflections, explaining the steps to writing a new year’s key verse testimony: A. Pray B. Choose a verse. Find out what pleases the Lord C. Monitor our hearts for sincerity and D. Follow through. He challenged us to be real, to come as we were before Him and allow Him to guide us in the New Year. Missionaries were available and ready to help anyone who needed guidance in picking out a key verse. In order to get our hearts in the right place to write our testimonies, there was an hour of prayer worked into the program. We cleared out all of the chairs in the sanctuary and got down on our knees and prayed. We cried out to God and God heard our tears and sincere prayers. Many spent hours, staying up late into the night, writing key verse testimonies and I believe that God heard our repentance and real struggles before Him.
As always, the last day came too quickly. After sharing testimonies in our group Bible studies, we had our last meeting. Toledo led a very spirited praise and worship, Whitney Koch from Chicago shared her life testimony. Through the life testimonies I realized that God meets each person uniquely, in His right time and in His right way. Each person’s story was so different, and I was comforted that there is no cookie cutter way of coming to God. Dr. John Yoon from UofC delivered the closing message on Psalm 119:9-16. The title of his message was “Live the Word, Love the Word.” He jokingly stated that in the past, he was always invited to speak about themes related to his marriage and that we were only interested in his love life. But that day, he expressed interest in our love lives with God. His insightful message taught me how I could keep my love for God pure. It is by living according to God’s word. This was a very appropriate message because after everything that we learned about loving God and others, how can we practically live a life of love? It is by living according to God’s word and loving the word of God. He emphasized the word “do” in every previous message: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) “Do this and you will live” (Lk 10:28) “Go and do likewise.” (Lk 10:37) By this time of the conference, we were so raw in our spiritual state and so hungry for God’s word, we all hung onto Dr. John’s every word with a lot of “mmm’s” and “Amen’s”. He told us to run away from sin and temptation not because it’s against God’s law but because sin breaks God’s heart. We need God’s word to keep our way pure. He challenged us to live the word as an expression of our love for God. Missionaries Joshua Hong from UofC and David Kim from DuPage closed with prayer. They had been serving the conference from the beginning and it was through their continuous prayer and spiritual support that YDC was even possible.
I received so much grace through this conference. Before the conference, I had fallen into the rut of mundane life: working, eating, sleeping and trying to live my life to the fullest. But I was living selfishly, and surprisingly, I wasn’t happy. I felt hollow and cold inside because I had no room for God. I only thought of myself and what I wanted. But coming to this conference reminded me of my first love. God broke through my cold heart and overwhelmed me with His love. I had been looking for love everywhere else, and had no idea why I wasn’t happy. I was so convicted of God’s love, I chose Luke 10:27 as my new year’s key verse for 2009. God’s love is all I need. And I want to give all of my heart to Him, no more excuses, no holding back. I want to fall in love with God and let His love consume me. I want to be a good neighbor and love others, the people in our Columbus UBF ministry and my students at school. I want to make a new decision to read the Bible and love God’s word, so that I may fall more deeply in love with Him everyday. It’s like a first love, and I’m so excited to get to know Him more, and learn everything I can about Him, and see where this relationship with lead me.
I began attending yd conference since its inception. I remember the very first conference we had and how much we have grown – in our size and in our desire to grow as young disciples. The whole atmosphere at the conference was one of hunger and openness to know God’s word. We came at different stages in our walk with God and I believe that God touched each person at their level and moved them into the right steps in their love relationship with God.
